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04/12/2008

Being the fastest is not enough

Yesterday, the terrosrist group ETA killed another person in Spain. In this cases, as most of the cases, internet media have the initative. The first idea is to place the new. Shw where it took place. But the problem is that in this kind of news all the information is changing all the time during the first hour, and the data are not accurate. Yesterday, we only knew that Ignacio Uria was killed while he was going to his favourite restaurant, Kiruri. We didn't even knew if he came form his house or form his job.

These are screenshots from some spanish websites two hours after the agencies gave the new:

ELPAIS.com

elmundo.es

El Correo

Público.es

ADN.es

Each has the location on a different place. If we don't know the exact place, we shouldn't publish anything. I really prefer this idea:

20minutos

ABC.es

They located Azpeitia, the village were everything happened, and not a very known place in Spain. And they were right. They told exactly what they really knew. Better than say something false. Somebody could say that journalism is for braves, but I prefer to think that in journalism we must be trusted. Losing credibility is very very easy. To recover it is very very hard.

None of those that placed the killing on a exact place were right.

Some rectified later, others didn't even change it. Being the fastest can't go before telling the truth. On reconstructions many editors use to say that "the reader know this is not exactly the truth, that we're just guessing". I don't want the reader to not trust us. I prefer to have a reader who really think that when we say something we know it and we're not guessing.